NY crisis pregnancy centers can speak about 'abortion pill reversal,' judge rules

[August 24, 2024]  By Brendan Pierson

(Reuters) - Two New York crisis pregnancy centers and a national anti-abortion group can tell women about an unproven treatment to reverse the effect of the abortion pill mifepristone, a federal judge has ruled, a setback for efforts by the state's Democratic attorney general to crack down on such claims.

U.S. District Judge John Sinatra in Buffalo, New York, wrote in a preliminary order late on Thursday that the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment guarantee of free speech protects the right of Gianna's House, Options Care Center and the National Institute for Family and Life Advocates (NIFLA) to "speak freely" about abortion pill reversal and "to say that it is safe and effective for a pregnant woman to use in consultation with her doctor."

The order will remain in place while Sinatra, who was appointed by Republican then-President Donald Trump, considers the case more fully. It applies only to the two centers and NIFLA.

"The court was right to affirm the pregnancy centers' freedom to tell interested women about this life-saving treatment option," Caleb Dalton of the conservative legal group Alliance Defending Freedom, who represents the plaintiffs, said in a statement.

The office of New York Attorney General Letitia James did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Mifepristone is the first part of a two-drug regimen used for medication abortion, which is approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for terminating pregnancy in the first 10 weeks. Medication abortion accounted for more than 60% of U.S. abortions last year.

Proponents of medication abortion reversal say mifepristone's effects can be blocked by a high dose of the hormone progesterone. There are no controlled clinical trials showing the procedure is safe or effective, and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists says that it is not supported by science.

A patient prepares to take Mifepristone, in Carbondale, Illinois, U.S., April 20, 2023. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein

Crisis pregnancy centers provide services to pregnant women with the goal of preventing them from having abortions, and some have advertised abortion pill reversal.

James in May sued 11 crisis pregnancy centers and Heartbeat International, an anti-abortion group affiliated with some of them, asking a state court in Manhattan to block them from advertising abortion pill reversal. That case, brought under New York laws against misleading business practices, remains pending.

NIFLA and the two centers sued James soon after that. While they are not defendants in James' lawsuit, they argued that the threat of similar enforcement against them in the future violated their First Amendment rights.

Sinatra agreed, saying James' lawsuit "chilled" the plaintiffs' speech.

The U.S. Supreme Court in June rejected an effort by anti-abortion groups represented by Alliance Defending Freedom to restrict the availability of mifepristone nationwide. However, the decision only addressed the groups' standing to sue, not the merits of their case, and three Republican-led states are still pursuing an effort to restrict the drug.

(Reporting By Brendan Pierson in New York, Editing by Alexia Garamfalvi and Jonathan Oatis)

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